Of Radical Feminism and Misandry

Whenever I bring up the subject of feminism, I always hear about those crazy extremists who really are all about hating men. I’m sure they exist. There plenty of crazy ideas out there, and misandry is actually saner compared to them. Women are also parrt of the dating game, so the terrible of reality of people wanting to have sex with you but not be in a relationship must have taken its toll on some. The thing is, these people can never refer to an example of such a radical feminist. They also don’t see that misandry and feminism, even the radical version, are two seperate things.. You can point out misandry all you want, and if it makes sense I’ll get behind you. It’ll never be a solid criticism of feminism or radical feminism.

We need to define these terms before we can talk about them. Feminism and misandry easy.

Feminism is the belief that the limits imposed on women, by various things must be lifted in order to achieve gender equality. Feminism is about equality, but it’s concerned mainly with women’s issues. Something is a feminist issue when it targets women (The wage gap), not necessarily when a man is an asshole and happens to annoy a few females (Manspreading).

Misandry is prejudice and hatred of males. It’s misogyny, only for males. Something is misandrist when it targets males as the problem, and generally attributes it to them being male. For example, the whole Manspreading debate is misandrist because it targets men for something that is not necessarily exclusive to males, and doesn’t back it up. Misandry generally exposes itself when people attribute bad deeds mostly to males, while ignoring the victims. It’s easiest to spot misandry when someone complains about something males do that doesn’t target any specific group (Assuming he has proof it’s done mostly by males), or attributing a bad behavior to males without any evidence.

Radical feminism is not misandrty. For the sake of definition, I will use ‘radical’ as any example of bad feminism. Radical feminism is when feminists view everything through the lens of feminism, and interpart anything based on whether it promotes equality or not. It turns many personal things into political. Radical feminism is criticizing women who prefer to be submissive and passive during sex, or choose a more traditional role. Radical feminism is feminism shooting itself in the foot. It aims for equality, but ends up limiting women just like the patriarchy. However, since feminism is concerned with women’s issues, it’s only radical feminism when it discusses women’s issues. Radical feminism is limiting women in the name of equality.

There’s obviously common ground between misandry and radical feminism. Both are irrational, and are more of an emotional reaction instead of a logical one. Hating males is an emotion. Feminists who shoot themselves in the foot do it because they feel so much like victims they’ll attack anything that reinforces that belief. Still, while both are problematic we can’t solve a problem if we don’t know what it is. More importantly, don’t talk about a quack idea or a radical movement if you can’t show them. Everyone can invent a radical version of something in their heads, but the real things are harder to spot. If they aren’t, they’re funnier than anything on TV. Most things are funnier than TV.

3 thoughts on “Of Radical Feminism and Misandry”

Good post. However, I’m not quite sure if I agree that all “radical feminism” is not misandry. Dworkin is the obvious example, who has written some gems such as, “Under patriarchy, every woman’s son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman.” Dworkin obviously represents the sort of radical feminism which you refer to, and there are many things wrong with her arguments apart from the man-hating aspect (I would argue that sex-negativity crucially denies the feminine experience), but I think a good case could be made for her misandry.

That’s not to take away from your point, though. You’re very right to point out the difference between “radical feminism” and “misandry” while condemning both.

Then Dworkin is an example of RadFem merging with misandry. These are two ideas that can easily come together because they’re both emotional reaction to a percieved state of victimhood.

My point was that it’s best to separate these into two distinct problems, and acknowledge when they appear alone and when they appear together. A person ranting against Manspreading is a misandrist (I’m planning to write a post about it too). A person who thinks women should separate themselves from men is both misandrist and RadFem. Your quote is misandrist. but not really RadFem – it doesn’t say much about women (Attacking a mother’s son can be hurtful to her, but she’s still not the target).